The rantings of a teacher who retired from the classroom but not from education.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Join The Revolution

You say you want a revolutionWell, you knowWe all want to change the worldYou tell me that it's evolutionWell, you knowWe all want to change the world

These Beatles lyrics have been swimming in my brain all day because I WANT A REVOLUTION in education. I am so sick of it all. I want destruction of the system as it now stands. I want to start over, giving kids an education that means something, an education that will help them become outstanding citizens and be able to provide for themselves and their families.

But when you talk about destructionDon't you know that you can count me outDon't you know it's gonna be all rightall right, all right

This destruction, I want a part of. I want to do away with forcing kids to take meaningless classes. If a kid tells me one more time that line segments in a circle add up to 180 degrees, I am going to jump out the window. If I look at another IEP goal that says Jenny will graduate and go to college, I will hang myself. If I hear one more teacher griping about having to maintain the same standards that existed when they were in high school ten years ago, I might just slug them. If just once more I am forced to sit through a meeting talking about Johnny's goal of having an organized notebook, well, I don't know what I will do. It seems to me that if Johnny hasn't learned this by now he might never be able to learn this.

You say you got a real solutionWell, you knowWe'd all love to see the plan

I want a plan that does not involve boot camps, credit recovery and other crap. No more of this dribble just to get these kids out.

You ask me for a contributionWell, you knowWe're doing what we can

We are not doing what we can. We are doing what is easy. It is much easier to go along with the status quo than to fight it. No one wants a real plan because a real plan costs money. A real plan might be politically incorrect. Mayor Money Bags and his bunch of stooges and President Change think teachers are the problem. Yes, there are bad teachers, but not all. Money is not going to make me or anyone else better at what we do.

But when you want moneyfor people with minds that hate

Maybe the minds don't hate, but they certainly don't love. The current education system is set up to doom future generations to failure. The elitist running the system want it that way. They want lots of ignorant people around to do their bidding. The Mark Weprin's of the world are looking to extend mayoral control of the city's schools are taking our tax money and pissing it away. They are allowing people like Evil Moskowitz to keep opening her charter schools, schools running at the expense of all others. Another elitist, Merryl Tisch, a woman who has absolutely no public school experience was just chosen chancellor of education for NYS. She might not hate, but her ignorance of public school life is more than enough to do us in.

All I can tell is brother you have to waitDon't you know it's gonna be all rightall right, all rightAh

Brother, it is not going to be all right. We need a revolution and we need it now!

It's scary that Education is now being run by those who don't know a Sh*t about education.

Now I can tell you geometry is taught in elementary school and my students knew circles, angles, line segments, etc. in 5th grade. Yet it always seems the problem is retention. If we started teaching fewer concepts with more time and meaning instead of so many different concepts in less than a week, I think it would make a world of difference.

I am not so sure about any of this left brain, right brain stuff. I have been trying a bunch of online quizzes to see what I am (maybe that says something about me in itself). Two said I was left brained, two said I was right brained and one came out 50-50.

Interesting how you can form an opinion about me when you don't even know me. What does this say about your brain?

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About Me

I have been teaching in NYC for over 30 years. I first taught at an inner city school. The staff was close and we all worked together to help the kids. We tutored constantly and were involved in many activities outside of school. We participated in student faculty sporting events where teachers who were not sports oriented dressed up as cheerleaders. We raised money by putting on a "faculty frolics" show. We stood on stage and made fools out of ourselves to raise school spirit and help our students feel part of the community. These feelings are no longer a part of my job. I still love my classes and students but I can't wait until I can go home at the end of the day. I use this blog to express my frustations about the way teaching has changed. I don't want to retire but sometimes feel I can't go on any longer the way the system is now.